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BuzzFeed has a profile on the work of Dr. Stanley Glick, formerly of Albany Medical College. Dr. Glick has developed an experimental drug for curing addiction to recreational substances including narcotics, alcohol, and nicotine. Glick's drug, 18-MC (short for 18-methoxycoronaridine), resulted from his investigation of the alleged ability of ibogaine (a powder extracted from the roots of certain Central African plants) to cure addiction. The tip came from an ex-junkie (now deceased) who swore that ibogaine cured his addiction. To Glick's surprise, ibogaine did seem to be effective in curing substance addiction in rats. However, the US National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) halted investigation into ibogaine as an over-the-counter medication long ago because of severe documented side effects, including fatal cardiac arrest. Glick and chemist Martin Kuehne tested various compounds to tweak ibogaine in an attempt to retain the anti-addictive power without the side effects; the result was 18-MC.
In simple terms — which Glick often has trouble using — 18-MC blocks the pleasurable effects of cocaine by “dampening the response” to dopamine. Glick pulls up several graphs that show the cocaine intake of addicted rats dropping precipitously after they receive 18-MC.
“What the rat is telling you here is, ‘The drug is getting in, I feel it, but it’s not giving me the kick that it used to,’” Glick says. “That’s really the essence of how we think 18-MC works. … No matter what dose of the addictive drug you take, it’s just not giving you the buzz it used to.”
After the successful experiments with rats, Glick entered a partnership with the pharmaceutical company Savant HWP, which has just begun human safety trials of the drug. However, the road to approval by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) will be long and arduous at best; for example, 18-MC could turn out to have the same difficulties with side effects as ibogaine.
The article also briefly sketches two competitors to 18-MC: a dopamine-regulator drug from Dr. Juan Canales of New Zealand in partnership with the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, and a cocaine vaccine from Dr. Ronald Crystal of Weill Cornell Medical College.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday October 15 2014, @02:48PM
Number 3 already requires FDA approval directly.
1, 2, 4 and 5 will generally require it indirectly (unless you own the farm that produced that food, and prepared it all yourself...in which case I think it's still technically their job to regulate it, they just won't be there to do it.)
You realize the 'F' in FDA is for 'Food', right? Nearly all food is already regulated by the FDA, except perhaps some of the meats and things that are generally handled by the USDA instead...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 16 2014, @02:11PM
requires FDA approval
Yeah good point, if our government and corporations merged and were run by lunatics we'd really be in big trouble, so as you point out, luckily this won't be an issue (LOL).
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday October 16 2014, @02:47PM
Ah my mistake, I misread your post. I read it as "within 5 years FDA approval will be required for..." rather than "FDA will require this to be added to..."
I definitely was not saying that there will necessarily be safe because they require FDA approval. Just look at their past statements on GMOs -- not that I'm against ALL GMOs, but at one point the FDA was saying Monsanto was responsible for ensuring they were safe, while Monsanto was saying the FDA was responsible for ensuing they were safe. So there's clearly a pretty huge gap there...